When I turn my body inside-out I do it the same way you would a piece of clothing: by pulling the top through the bottom. In other words, I pull my head through my anus. Basically, I reach up with my arm through my anus and grab the top of the inside of my skull and pull everything down back through my anus. I do this in front of the body-length mirror I own so I can see what I look like inside-out, and what I discover after I’ve done all this—turned my body inside-out and all—is a man, another man, who looks nothing like me. The man—the man inside of me—is hypertrophiedly muscular and has a bald crown with two earmuffs of brown hair bookending his face. I am not muscular nor do I have a bald crown or two earmuffs of brown hair. Actually, what I suppose would be more accurate is the outside of me is not muscular nor has a bald crown or two earmuffs of brown hair, because, clearly, some part of me is muscular and does have a bald crown and two earmuffs of brown hair.
Every now and then I go further and turn the man inside of me’s body inside-out, and what I discover on the other side of him is a woman, a small Taiwanese woman. Neither I nor the man inside of me are Taiwanese. We are both white. Then I continue, turning the small Taiwanese woman inside-out, then the person inside of her, then the person inside the person inside of her, and so on, in search of the person I think I am, who must surely be inside of me somewhere, though, admittedly, I’ve yet to find him. Or her, for that matter.
Trevor Fuller is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at Wichita State University and a reader for the literary journal mojo.
